By: Ibni Maqbool
Srinagar: The much-talked about policy unveiled by the previous PDP-BJP government for regularization of casual, seasonal and other workers in Jammu and Kashmir has been put in cold storage since January 2019.
Documents accessed by The Precious Kashmir reveal that an empowered committee constituted by the J&K government for implementation of the policy has never met after January 2, 2019.
The empowered committee headed by administrative secretary, Finance department and comprising senior bureaucrats was set-up to recommend cases for regular engagement of casual, season and other workers after proper scrutiny of proposals received from the concerned administrative departments.
Since inception of the policy, only 578 casuals, season and other workers were regularised under the policy before it was put into cold storage.
The government’s indifference over the policy has dashed hopes of thousands of daily wagers who were craving for their regularization.
“We saw a ray of hope when the government unveiled the policy but we feel betrayed and cheated after the policy was put in cold storage,” said Nazir Ahmad, a daily-wager.
He said the government’s apathetic attitude over the regularisation policy is grave injustice with the families of thousands of daily wagers.
It is worthwhile to mention that the PDP-BJP government notified the policy for “regular engagement” of casual, seasonal and other workers in December 2017 .
Under the policy, the casual, seasonal and other workers were entitled to monthly remuneration ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 24,000, provided that their period of engagement is above 10 years and they possess minimum educational qualification of 8th standard or above.
The policy categorized the workers as skilled and non-skilled for remuneration and other benefits.
It was applicable to casual labourers, daily-rated workers, seasonal workers, ITI-trained workers and left-out adhoc/contractual/ consolidated workers who had failed to fulfill the eligibility criteria prescribed under the J&K civil services (special provision) Act, 2010.
